New York Islanders Daily: Travis Hamonic’s Glad He Stayed

New York Islanders defenseman Travis Hamonic is happy that he rescinded his trade request last May. He feels he made the right choice.

The entire Travis Hamonic trade request story from last year was tough. It was for family reasons that Hamonic wanted to be traded closer to home and I have to respect him for putting his family first.

When he rescinded his request on May 10th the Islanders were happy, because replacing a top four right handed defenseman on a team friendly contract is no easy task. With the Islanders recent trip to Winnipeg the story came back up, and Travis is happy with his decision.

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He’s been paired with Nick Leddy as the Islanders top pair and to be brutally honest he hasn’t had a good year. Which has made Islanders fans upset because Garth Snow didn’t trade him for an elite winger like Taylor Hall.

As frustrating as it is to watch John Tavares without an elite player, I’ll give Garth the benefit of the doubt on this one.

You can’t just give away a top four defenseman, who you have locked up longterm for cheap. If Snow felt like he wasn’t getting equal compensation for Hamonic I can’t blame him for not making the move.

Of course now with revisionist history it would seem that trading Hamonic would’ve helped the Islanders. You can’t change the past, and if Hamonic is happy with his situation and the family issue is all cleared then we’re all good. The next step is working on that plus minus.